An ethnic armed group resisting Myanmar's military government is suspected of carrying out a deadly attack on Rohingya Muslims trying to flee the war-torn country on Monday.
One witness estimated the attack, which took place in the western state of Rakhine and reportedly involved drones and artillery, killed about 150 civilians as they tried to cross the Naf River into neighbouring Bangladesh.
That number, if confirmed, would make the attack one of the deadliest incidents involving civilians to have taken place during the country's ongoing civil war.
The Arakan Army, the military wing of the state's Rakhine ethnic group, denied responsibility for the assault, and expressed condolences to the victims and their families.
However, two self-described survivors contacted by the Associated Press blamed the group for the attack, as did Rohingya activists and Myanmar's military government.
A statement issued on Friday by Doctors Without Borders said that in the past week, it had been treating increasing numbers of Rohingya people with violence-related injuries who had managed to cross the border into Bangladesh.
The statement said some patients "reported seeing people bombed while trying to find boats to cross the river into Bangladesh and escape the violence. Others described seeing hundreds of dead bodies on the riverbanks."
Gruesome videos circulating on social media purported to show dozens of bodies of adults and children strewn along a road near the riverside.
Neither the video nor details of the attack can be easily verified due to tight restrictions on travel and ongoing combat in the area.
Pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic minority armed forces have been attempting to oust Myanmar's military rulers from power since they seized control from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
However, the fighting in Rakhine has raised fears of a revival of organised violence against members of the Rohingya minority.
In 2017, a military counter-insurgency campaign drove at least 740,000 members of the Rohingya community to Bangladesh for safety.
Almost all of them remain there, living in overcrowded refugee camps and unable to return home because of the continuing instability.
Many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, but face widespread prejudice and are generally denied citizenship and other basic rights in the Buddhist-majority country.
Accusations against Arakan Army fail to stick
The Arakan Army, seeking autonomy from Myanmar's central government, began its Rakhine offensive in November, and has gained control of nine of 17 townships, along with one in neighbouring Chin state.
It has been trying since June to seize the border town of Maungdaw.
It has also been accused of major human rights violations before, particularly involving its capture of the town of Buthidaung in mid-May.
The Arakan Army was accused of forcing Buthidaung's estimated 200,000 residents, largely Rohingya, to leave, and then setting fire to most of the buildings there.
The group denied the allegations, though witnesses described the group's actions to the Associated Press and other media.
Allegations of abuses by the Arakan Army are controversial because the group has played a major role in winning battlefield victories for the resistance movement against military rule.
There is also much credible evidence of atrocities being carried out by government forces, whereas reported abuses by resistance groups have been minimal.
Harrowing stories of survival
A 17-year-old Rohingya who survived Monday's artillery and drone attack said that just after 6pm, he saw four drones flying from the southern part of Maungdaw toward the riverbank, where about 1,000 Rohingya, including himself, were waiting for boats to cross into Bangladesh.
The man, who spoke to the Associated Press by phone from Bangladesh on Friday on the condition of anonymity to protect his relatives, said he and others jumped into the water as the drones dropped three bombs near where he and 12 of his family members had been standing.
Following the drone attack, about 20 artillery shells also hit the crowd, he said, and he estimated that about 150 people, including children and women, were killed in total.
Unable to get any boat to cross into Bangladesh that night, he and his family returned to their village in Myanmar and went back to the riverbank around 5pm Tuesday to try again.
But fighting broke out at the site between military government soldiers — who were in civilian clothes — and the Arakan Army troops pursuing them.
He said the soldiers withdrew from the riverbank after an hour of fighting, but the Arakan Army troops shot Rohingya civilians remaining there at close range.
He said he saw at least 20 Rohingya killed by the group, and believes many others trapped in the crossfire also died.
He and just four family members managed to cross into Bangladesh, while eight others were missing in the aftermath of Tuesday's violence.
A 22-year-old Rohingya man who crossed into Bangladesh by boat just two hours after Monday's attack told the AP that he passed about 50 to 60 dead bodies before boarding the boat, and saw many injured people, including children, asking for water or looking for missing people in the dark.
The man, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said 30 people including him and 11 family members were carried by a small boat into Bangladesh around 9pm Monday.
He said they were able to escape Friday and make their way into a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Both men said they believed the Arakan Army was responsible for the attacks, which came from the direction of the group's encampment south of Maungdaw and resembled drone attacks the group has been making daily on the town itself, which is still held by government troops.
Friday's statement from Doctors Without Borders also supported the dates, locations and type of wounds described in the two survivors' accounts.
The organisation said that from Sunday to Wednesday, its teams in Bangladesh treated 39 people for violence-related injuries.
"More than 40 per cent were women and children, and many had mortar shell injuries and gunshot wounds," it said, noting that the numbers peaked on Tuesday, when 21 wounded people were treated.
The military, through Myanmar's state-controlled press, also blamed the Arakan Army for attacking Rohingya civilians, an offence the military itself was accused of carrying out on a large scale in 2017.
A report on Wednesday in the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper claimed Arakan Army troops had raped and killed Rohingya women and girls.
The Arakan Army, in a statement released Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app, denied carrying out Monday's attack.
The group said it bore no responsibility for the deaths, which did not occur in an area under its control, and expressed condolences to the victims.
The group also claimed that government soldiers and local Muslims it said were fighting alongside them were preventing civilians from reaching safe locations.
The situation is especially complicated because the military government has been forcibly drafting Rohingya to serve on its side, and several armed Rohingya groups are widely reported to have abducted Rohingya men from refugee camps in Bangladesh to hand them over to serve in the army.
AP
